It was called the 'Tales of the Thousand and One Nights.'" "Bah!" cried the eldest of the group.

"Bah! I say.

Your 'Thousand and One Nights,' your fairy stories, all the wonders of nature,"-- here he waved his trembling old hand excitedly,--"all these are but as nothing compared with what I have seen." "Hear him!" exclaimed the young fellow of fifty; "hear old Father Nonesuch, will you, comrades?
He thinks, because he has seen the republic, the consulate, the empire, the hundred days, the kingdom"-- "And is not that enough, youngster ?" interrupted the old veteran they called Father Nonesuch.[1] [1] Perhaps the correct rendering of this nickname would be "The Remnant," and it applies to the battered veteran even better than "Nonesuch."] He certainly merited the nickname given him by his comrades; for I saw, by glancing at him, that the old veteran had but one leg, one arm, and one eye.
"Enough ?" echoed the one called "the youngster," whose grizzled locks showed him to be at least fifty years old, "Enough?
Well, perhaps--for you.

But, my faith! I cannot see that they were finer than the 'Thousand and one Nights.'" "Bah!" again cried old Nonesuch contemptuously; "but those were fairy stories, I tell you, youngster,--untrue stories,--pagan stories.
But when one can tell, as can I, of stories that are true,--of history--history this--history that--true histories every one--bah!" and, shrugging his shoulders, old Nonesuch tapped upon his neighbor's snuff-box, and, with his only hand, drew out a mighty pinch by way of emphasis.
"Well, what say thou, Nonesuch,--you and your histories ?" persisted the young admirer of the "Arabian Nights." "As for me,--my faith! I like only marvellous." [Illustration: "Beneath the great dome he rests"-- The Hotel des Invalides (The 'Soldiers' Home' in Paris, containing the Tomb of Napoleon)] "And I tell you this, youngster," the old veteran cried, while his voice cracked into a tremble in his excitement, "there is more of the marvellous in the one little finger of my history than in all the characters you can crowd together in your 'Thousand and One Nights.' Bah!--Stephen, boy; light my pipe." "And what is your history, Father Nonesuch ?" demanded "the youngster," while two-armed Stephen, a gray old "boy" of seventy, filled and lighted the old veteran's pipe.
"My history ?" cried old Nonesuch, struggling to his feet,--or rather to his foot,--and removing his hat, "it is, my son, that of the Emperor Napoleon!" And at the word, each old soldier sprang also to his feet, and removed his hat silently and in reverence.
"Why, youngster!" old Father Nonesuch continued, dropping again to the bench, "if one wished to relate about my emperor a thousand and one stories a thousand and one nights; to see even a thousand and one days increased by a thousand and one battles, adding to that a thousand and one victories, one would have a thousand and a million million things -- fine, glorious, delightful, to hear.

For, remember, comrades," and the old man well-nigh exploded with his mathematical calculation, and the grandeur of his own recollections, "remember you this: I never left the great Napoleon!" "Ah, yes," another aged veteran chimed in; "ah, yes; he was a great man." Old Nonesuch clapped his hand to his ear.
"Pardon me, comrade the Corsican," he said, with the air of one who had not heard aright; "excuse my question, but would you kindly tell me whom you call a great man ?" "Whom, old deaf ears?
Why, the Emperor Napoleon, of course," replied the Corsican.
Old Nonesuch burst out laughing, and pounded the pavement with his heavy cane.
"To call the emperor a man!" he exclaimed; "and what, then, will you call me ?" "You?
why, what should we ?" said the Corsican veteran; "old Father Nonesuch, old 'Not Entire,' otherwise, Corporal Francis Haut of Brienne." "Ah, bah!" cried the persistent veteran; "I do not mean my name, stupid! I mean my quality, my--my title, my--well--my sex,--indeed, what am I ?" "Well, what is left of you, I suppose," laughed the Corsican, "we might call a man." "A man! there you have it exactly!" cried old Nonesuch.